Automated Pfirmann Grading of Lumbar Disc Degeneration Using Deep Learning: An End-to-End Framework for MRI Analysis

Lumbar disc degeneration assessment through Pfirrmann grading is crucial for clinical diagnosis but suffers from inter-observer variability and time-intensive manual evaluation. This paper presents a precise deep learning framework for automated Pfirrmann grading of lumbar disc degeneration from MRI scans. Our method introduces a novel preprocessing pipeline that integrates focus-slice aggregation…